I'm Jonathan Capehart and this is Cape Up.

Once again, Washington is starting to talk about the debt ceiling, that limit on the amount

of money the federal government can borrow to pay all of its bills.

And once again, there's talk of not raising the limit.

That's crazy, because not doing so would unleash economic hell on the US and the global economy.

When we went through this in 2017, I sat down with Shia Cabas, the director of Economic Policy

at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who explained the debt ceiling in plain English.

I'm bringing back this conversation because while there are some dated references to certain

payments, and the Treasury Secretary is no longer Steve Mnuchin, the fundamental facts

remain the same and they're terrifying.

We're at all right now.

Shia Cabas, thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Absolutely, great to be with you, Joe.

Okay, so we got to get something out of the way right now.

A lot of people, when they talk about the debt ceiling, they think that it also means

government shutdown, and they're not the same.

So what is the difference between a government shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis that

people are talking about for September?

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

And this time around, it's actually even worse because they're happening at roughly

the same time.

So it's actually adding to the confusion.

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